


From Beijing to Helsinki

by Geoduck



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: 2016 Zagreb Golden Spin, Gen, Post-Cup of China
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-04
Updated: 2020-03-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:08:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22569904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Geoduck/pseuds/Geoduck
Summary: His fifth place finish at the Cup of China ensured that Guang-Hong's Grand Prix season was over. But there were many competitions still ahead. And maybe if he raised up the difficulty of his routine, he'd stand a chance against the other top skaters.But it's a long road ahead. And sometimes, just as long a road behind.
Relationships: Ji Guang-Hong & Ji Guang-Hong's Coach
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	1. Prologue - Beijing - November 2016 - Cup of China

_+guanghongji+: Thanks for supporting me everyone! 谢谢! Unfortunately I won’t qualify for the GP final, but I hope you’ll cheer for me when I skate again! I have to practice hard! Sorry, I won’t be posting much, so please don’t forget about me!_

I scanned it for typos, didn’t see any, then shared it. 

The first 'like' appeared within seconds. 

What am I doing? I’m not supposed to be checking the likes and comments.

If I want to move forward, I have to give it all up. For awhile. 

Settings page… scrolling down… there.

Click it before I change my mind. 

There. Logged out.

“Okay, that’s one." I heard her over my shoulder. "How about the rest of them?”

“Coach, do I really have to?”

She gave me a look. “ **You** were the one who said you were going to give up social media. If you really want to increase the difficulty of your program for this season, do you really think you're going to have time to worry about being online?”

“Yeah, I know.”

Coach smirked. “Maybe a compromise? I'll make you a deal. For every quad you land in practice--and I mean a _clean_ landing, no underrotation, no touching the ice with your hands--you can use social media for... one minute.”

“Just one minute? Come on, landing a quad cleanly deserves at least ten minutes!”

“Thirty seconds, it is.”

“Yes, coach, one minute would be fine.”

This was not going to be easy.


	2. Zagreb - Golden Spin - December 2016 - Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been a furious few weeks of training, and Guang-Hong is ready to try out his new moves.
> 
> At least, he was ready. The closer it gets to the actual competition, the less confident he feels.
> 
> He's not sure if he was born to make history.

It was a nine hour flight from Beijing to Dubai.

“Coach?” I tapped her lightly on the arm.

It was a four hour layover in Dubai.

“Coach? Time to wake up, coach.”

And a six hour flight from Dubai to Zagreb.

“Eh? What?”

“We’re almost there. It’s time to move our seats back up. Can I…”

She sighed and pulled my cell phone from her jacket pocket and gave it to me. “There. You can use it until we get to passport control.”

I grinned. “Thanks coach.” In under a minute, I was on the plane’s wifi.

“Did you get any sleep, Guang Hong?”

“A bit.” Ooh, Leo posted a video. Not enough broadband on the plane to watch it, but I’ll like it anyway. It’s certain to be great. “I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

“Today isn’t going to be a day off, you know.”

“I know, I know. Practice this afternoon.” Phichit hasn’t flown to Barcelona yet? Huh.

“And training in the hotel gym this evening.”

“Yeah, training.”

“You’re going to do something nobody’s ever done before. I want to make sure you’re ready.”

I looked at her and smiled. “I’m ready.”

* * *

_ +guanghongji+: Just about to land in Zagreb! I hope you’ll all be supporting me in the Golden Spin! Hvala na podršci! _

* * *

Zagreb was one of the few European cities I actually competed in before: a Junior Grand Prix qualifying event three years ago.

It was mostly a nice memory, but a little bittersweet. I silvered, and that was the best I had ever done in international competition up to that point. But it wasn’t enough to qualify for the JPG finals. Three points and I would have been there!

But coach let me go online in the taxi ride, so I concentrated more on the comments to my last post than on memories.

* * *

_ phichit+chu:  _ **_祝你好运！_ **

_ christophe-gc: Good luck! _

_ sukeota3sisters: Say hi to Yurio! _

* * *

Yurio? “Is… Is Yuri competing here too? He didn’t withdraw?”

“Plisetsky? Yes.”

“But… he’s in the GP finals next week.”

“That’s right. I’m not sure what his coach is thinking. Competing just one week before a major final? If you had qualified for the finals this year, there’s no way I’d let you compete at this one.”

“I wonder if…”

“Hmm?”

“Yuri got silver in Russia and silver in Canada. He hasn’t won gold in a senior event.”

Coach nodded. “And last season he won gold in every junior event. So maybe his coach wants him to have a chance to get gold in  _ something _ before the GPF, build up his confidence? Or maybe he’s made some changes to his programs that he wants to try out in a less prominent tournament. Who does that sound like?”

Okay, direct hit. “Do you really think that? That he raised his base scores?”

“Maybe. He’s going up against JJ, who has the highest base scores in all of skating. For now, that is.”

“Yeah. It’s just that… I didn’t imagine that I was going to be going up against Yuri.”

“You can beat him. You have the capability of beating any skater out there. But, Guang Hong.” She put her hand on my shoulder. “I feel like you think that what you need is to win. But what you really need is  _ to be great _ . If you skate with true greatness, it won’t matter how high your score is or how you place or if you make the podium or not.”

“Coach…”

“That being said, I’d prefer you be great  **and** make the podium, so try to do both, okay?”

“Sheesh. You really sounded cool there for a minute.”

* * *

Practice is tough when you’ve spent most of the last day in an airplane seat. I survived it, though. I was lacing my boots and getting ready to leave when Yuri walked in.

“Ah, Yuri?”

Yuri didn’t notice.

“Yuri? Plisetsky?”

Yuri’s coach tapped him on the arm and pointed toward me. Yuri looked over and pulled out his earbuds. “ _ What. _ ”

“Uh, I just wanted to say hi. We haven’t seen each other since Junior Worlds last year. Congratulations on the GPF.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

“Oh, and I’m supposed to say hi to you from, uh,” I couldn’t remember the name, so I looked at my phone “...sukeota three sisters?”

“Three… oh hell, not those brats. Wait, how do  _ you _ know them?”

“I don’t--not personally, at least. They make a lot of comments on my posts and they follow all my accounts.”

“Listen--those three don’t ‘follow’ anybody. What they do is ‘stalk.’ I blocked them after Rostelecom. They… never mind. I’ve got to go skate.” Yuri put his earbuds back in and followed his coach.

* * *

_ +guanghongji+: wish you were here in Zagreb. _

_ phichit+chu: aww, thanks. _

_ +guanghongji+: ...instead of me. _

_ phichit+chu: boo. _

_ phichit+chu: is it that bad? _

_ +guanghongji+: I guess not. It’s just that I hardly know anybody here. Yurio is the only one close to my age, and almost everyone is European. _

_ phichit+chu: how’s Yurio? _

_ +guanghongji+: same as I remember from when we were juniors. Doesn’t talk much and not very friendly when he does. _

_ phichit+chu: too bad. Yuuri seems to get along with him, but that’s only what Yuuri tells me. Yurio’s opinion might be very different. _

* * *

“I’m having second thoughts about my program.”

Coach looked over the top of the magazine she was reading. “Are you now.”

“Yes.”

“It’s human nature to feel doubts about a major decision. You’re feeling like changing the difficulty routine may have been a rash decision?”

“Yes.”

“And perhaps a more moderate course of action would be to skate your original programs?”

“Yes!”

“Tough luck. Your program content sheets have already been submitted.”

My face felt like it was on fire. “Coach!”

“The deadline was a week ago, Guang Hong. Sure, you can deviate from the sheet, but you could get penalized for that. And people  _ will _ find out what you planned, no matter what you do now. So as long as you aren’t injured… you didn’t injure anything today, did you?”

I shook my head no. 

“I didn’t think so. So long as you aren’t injured, you need to skate the program we submitted.”

“ **We** didn’t submit it.  **You** submitted.” I was feeling a little ticked off.

“ **We** . Both of our names are on it.”

“But… I feel like I might be making a mistake.”

“Little mistake or big?”

“Big.”

“Good. If you’re going to mess up, I don’t want little mistakes, I want huge, catastrophic disasters. Go big or go home. But first, go to bed. Tomorrow you’ll wake up, have a light breakfast, warm up, and do a combination that nobody in history has done in competition before.”

* * *

_ “The scores, please. Alex Moses from the United States has earned in the short program 74.37 which is a new season’s best. He is currently in second place.” _

‘Ignore the scores. Ignore the voice from the sky’, I thought as I headed to the middle of the ice. ‘I’m here to skate my program. Scores are irrelevant.’

“Skating next. Representing China, Guang Hong Ji.”

There were a few cheers from the crowd. Some were fans of figure skating generally, and a few Chinese expatriates living in Croatia.

I struck my opening pose.  _ Parfum des Fleurs _ started, and I headed for the end of the ice faster than in my old program for the opening jump combination.

‘Is this fast enough? Has to be.’ I jumped, landed cleanly then jumped again. 

‘Not enough speed.’ I fell but quickly got on my skates again. ‘Was that enough rotations? I don’t think it was. Dammit!’

‘Got to recover. Spin is next, then triple axel.’ The spin went well, but in the axel, my hand touched the ice when I landed.

‘Pull it together. Quad toe loop. No, I won’t make it. Change it to a triple.’ I landed the simplified jump cleanly.

‘That felt better. But it’s all over now. Even if my spins and step sequence are perfect, that won’t save my score.’

I smiled grimly. ‘So much for ignoring the scores.’

I finished his routine and bowed. I’m guessing there was applause, but I couldn’t hear any. I was so frustrated with myself that it drowned everything else out.

I skated to the side and got off the ice.

Coach hugged me. “Good job.” She handed me my blade guards.

“I didn’t get enough rotations on the triple toe loop in the combo.”

“You think I didn’t see? That’s why I said ‘good job’ and not ‘great job’. But, listen, you landed the quad lutz. You can do the whole combo cleanly in your free skate.”

“My scores are going to be so low. I fell and I touched the ice and I underrotated and I changed an element.”

“Guang Hong, you landed a quad lutz. Giacometti is the only other active skater in the entire world who lands that jump. Just think about that when we’re in the kiss and cry. We’ll work on the other things later.”

I moved to wipe my nose on my sleeve--she handed me a tissue first. “Thanks coach."

"For the tissue, or the pep talk?”

"Both."

“You’re welcome. I’ll give you hell later.”

* * *

_ leodliglesia: You sneak! Is that why you ducked out of social media for so long? Practicing a top secret new routine? (You were awesome, btw) _

_ christophe-gc: Welcome to the quad lutz club! I’ll teach you the official secret password and handshake later. _

_ yuri-katsuki: amazing! Keep working hard! _

_ phichit+chu: You had this up your sleeve and you didn’t even tell me? Me, your own younger twin brother? _

_ christophe-gc: Stop harassing a quad lutz club member, Chulanont. _

* * *

“Guang Hong, it’s starting.”

I was giggling so much at my friends’ posts that I almost missed the start of Yuri’s routine. “Ah, sorry.” My score put me in second place, and then down to third place after the next skater finished. Yurio, skating last, was almost certain to score highest of all, meaning that I’ll be in fourth place after the short program. “I really wanted to see Yuri’s routine in person. I’ve only seen it on video.”

She shushed me so I just watched. Yurio’s music really did sound like Yuuri Katsuki’s, but the routine itself was completely different. ‘I wonder if Victor Nikiforov would ever design a routine for me if I asked him.’ Yurio’s triple axel looked effortless. ‘His skating is perfect but he seems so angry.’

He completed his routine to the biggest round of applause of the evening. I didn’t need to see the scores. Yurio would definitely get over 100 with that short program. That’s just confirming what I already knew. I’m in fourth for now.

‘Funny thing, though. I thought I’d feel angry or upset. But I’m actually kind of happy. It’s basically impossible for me to win now, so there’s no pressure. I just need to skate better and it’ll feel like a kind of a win.’

**Author's Note:**

> Just about everything I know about figure skating was inspired by Yuri!! on Ice. Some of it from the show, but even more of it from research I've done since.
> 
> So I thought I'd take a line from Guang-Hong about increasing the difficulty of his routines and extrapolate it: what would happen when he did that?
> 
> So a few notes: I've kinda concatenated the fictional season of YoI with the actual calendar of the 2016-17 figure skating season. They don't match up--the Grand Prix qualifiers are in a different order, and the Golden Spin actually happened the same time as the GP finals instead of the week before--so I've taken artistic license when necessary. I obviously could have made it a completely fictional season, but, sort-of conforming to history gives me a solid framework for me to base the story on.


End file.
